


The Heat

by LiamsCraic



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Medical Conditions, Niall-centric, OT5 Friendship, Other, Sad Harry, Sad Liam, Sad Louis, Sad Zayn, Surgery, Worried Niall, maura cries a lot, sad family, theo's really oblivious and cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 00:29:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3467675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiamsCraic/pseuds/LiamsCraic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a one-shot i came up with myself, on Wattpad originally.</p><p> </p><p>so enjoy x</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one-shot i came up with myself, on Wattpad originally.
> 
>  
> 
> so enjoy x

The day had finally come for Niall to have his long awaited knee surgery.

He'd been worried and panicky about it ever since a date was set - that was 4 months ago. Now the day was here and Niall was on his way to the hospital ( _AN: I know he had the op in America but it's in the UK in this ok? K_ ), Paul had offered to drive him there and wait with him until his family arrived from Ireland. The rest of the boys were also going to tag along for moral support, knowing how nervous the little blonde was.  
Niall was sat in the back of the car, staring out the window and trying to take deep breaths and convincing himself that he's going to be ok. "Mate, you need to relax and chill ok?" Liam, sighed, seeing how worked up Niall was getting

"I know I just.. what-what if something goes wrong? Like what if they mess it up and I never walk again or I have to have my leg amputated or something? Or- or what if I die!?" Niall asked, eyes wide.

"Ni, you'll be fine stop worrying. You're getting yourself worked up and you'll start your asthma off, calm down and take deep breaths yeah?" Harry added

Niall took a look at the four faces looking at him and the one looking at him through the rear view mirror. He nodded and took deep breaths like he was told, eventually calming down. it was only 6am (they had to be at the hospital by 7am to get checked in, etc), so Niall decided maybe a little nap would help, so drifted off to sleep with his head resting on Liam's shoulder.

"He's proper freaking out guys" Zayn sighed

"He'll be fine, he always panics about stuff like this and he hates people fussing over him which is why he's coming up with all this overdramatic stuff" Louis, answered

Harry, though, wasn't so sure, "guys I know we're telling him to calm down but I have a bad feeling y'know?"

The 3 boys looked at the youngest, with raised eyebrows, "Harry, everything's gonna be fine ok? Think positive" Liam told him, although he was internally worrying because when Harry had a bad feeling, it usually came true.

After another half hour of driving, the group eventually made it to the Hospital, Liam gently shaking Niall awake and the others jumping out with Zayn grabbing Niall's bags.

Walking into the ward where they were told to go, Niall's nerves picked up again but he kept quiet. A nurse took Niall into a side ward to check his blood pressure, take some blood which she explained was for if he needed a blood transfusion which for the operation he was having would be very likely, gave him a gown to change into and went through some routine questions and was told that he was number 4 in the queue so it should be another hour or two yet. He answered everything and changed into the horrible scratchy gown, placing his dressing gown he'd brought with him over the top. "when's my family gonna get here?" He asked. He wanted to see them before he went in.

"Soon bud, have they text you yet?" Paul asked

"First thing this morning but nothing since."

"Do you know what time their flight's due to land?" Louis asked

Niall just shook his head, bringing his hand to his mouth to bite his nails.

It had been another hour of waiting and the boys trying to make Niall laugh and take his mind off of everything (which worked sometimes, much to everyone's surprise), when Maura, Bobby, Greg, Denise and a bubbly little Theo, turned up, immediately smothering Niall in kisses and cuddles knowing how anxious he'd be. "so how long until it's your turn, love?" Maura asked her youngest

"Um about an hour I think, maybe less. I don't know" he mumbled, too focused on his nephew who was half stood half sat in his lap, giggling, being far too happy for 8 in the morning.

30 minutes later and an anaesthetist came to collect Niall, letting him say his 'see you laters' to everyone and sharing hugs before he followed him to the theatre where he met the surgeons who'd be performing the surgery and in no time he was given the General Anaesthetic and was out like a light.

+

Fours hours later, the four boys, Paul and Niall's family were seated in a private family room, waiting for news, when a doctor walked in, an unreadable expression on his face. "Hello, I'm Dr. Green, are you all here for Niall?"

"Yes, is everything ok?" Bobby answered

"Yes and no," Dr. Green replied, "good news is that the surgery itself went well and we're positive Niall will make a full recovery with his knee, of course with help from physiotherapy."

"And the bad news?" Liam asked, warily

"During the operation, Niall's body temperature became very high and lucky the anaesthetist noticed and administered a drug which reversed his temperature but his temp then became lower than what it should be. He's out of theatre now and has been taken to the ICU where his body is slowly being heated up to the correct temperature and were monitoring him closely - we've also put him into what' scaled a medically induced coma so that his body can have time to re cooperate and when we're happy with his body's improvements we can wake him up. We've ran some tests and taken a look at Niall's monitoring to see what went wrong, and we've come to the decision that it's something called Malignant Hyperthermia. MH is a progressive life threatening reaction to the commonly used general anaesthetic drugs and usually comes with a very high temperature. It's due to a loss of calcium regulation within the skeletal muscles and during a reaction the metabolic activity of the muscles increase and goes into spasm which both contribute to the high temperature and other life threatening consequences. However, like I said before, fortunately the anaesthetist spotted Niall's high temperature and administered the reversing drug in time which, to put it bluntly, saved Niall's life."

Everyone in the room just fell to complete silence, not knowing what to say. After a while though, Bobby seemed to find his voice, "b-but Niall's had general anaesthetics before and this hasn't happened"

"It doesn't necessarily happen every time - there's a patient in America who's had over 20 operations before his first MH reaction happened. We really can't tell when it will happen but now that we've diagnosed it we can be sure to make sure that for any future operations that Niall has, his medical records state which anaesthetics to stay away from and which to give him to help reverse it if it does happen again"

It took a while for all the information to sink in but when it finally did there seemed to be a mixture of different emotions on each face - shock, confusion, anger, sadness, worry.  
Dr Green, took them to the ICU ward where Niall was given a private room which meant that everyone was able to see him at one time.

What they saw was horrible. Niall was asleep on the giant looking bed, cannulas in his hands, a giant needle sticking into his neck (they didn't even want to know what that was for), two small tubes inserted into his nose, and a heat pad looking thing across his stomach to help with regulating his body temperature, and not to mention his leg was bandaged and supported and looking grossly swollen and bloody even underneath all the gauze.

He looked so,  _not Niall_.

Their Niall was happy and loud and laughs and sunshine but this Niall was bruised and battered and quiet and  _so still and lifeless_.

Taking deep breathes and willing themselves to not cry for each other's sakes but especially Maura's (the poor woman hadn't stopped crying since the explanation and got even worse as soon as she saw Niall - she really didn't need to see more crying people), they all sat around Niall's bed, Theo seeming more interested in the beeping, loud and cool looking machines rather than the uncle that they were attached to.

Harry, who was sitting closest to Niall's left side, took the blonde's hand and gently whispered, "if you can hear us Nialler, you need to keep strong ok? We're all here for you and we'll be here when you wake up.  _We love you bud._ "


	2. The Heat // Part 2

2 days had passed and Niall was still asleep. Dr Green had said that his body hadn't improved enough for them to be confident that he'd be stable when he woke up.   
His family, the boys and Paul hadn't left his side for the entire time they could be there with him. They weren't allowed to stay overnight as there was nowhere for them to sleep, but as soon as morning came they stayed in Niall's private room.

"Good morning" the nurse looking after Niall, whose name they'd learnt was Molly, sung. She was a young petite girl, around early 20's with fair hair tied into a curly ponytail and big bright green eyes with minimal mascara framing them. She was always so happy and bubbly and it honestly helped bring them out of their bad moods sometimes.

"Morning, Molly" Louis replied

"I'm just going to do my daily obs on him if that's alright" she announced, earning nods from everybody.

It was silent for a bit whilst she did this but once she was finished she had a grin on her face, "well that's good!"

"What's good?" Greg asked

"His temperature seems to be stabilising better. I'll go and let Dr Green know and he should be in, in a minute doing his morning round!"

"So you'll be able to wake Niall up then?" Zayn asked curiously, with a hint of excitement and relief

"Well, I'm not saying that but we've needed for his temp to settle down before we considered anything else so this is progress! We'll just have to see what the Dr says" and with that she bid them farewell, leaving them in silence once again.

"I hope he can wake up soon" Liam muttered, clutching onto Niall's hand lightly. Niall's fingers twitched slightly under the grip.

This wasn't unusual - Dr Green had explained that Niall could still feel things even though he was asleep so his fingers would subconsciously react if someone held them, letting people know he was still there even if he himself didn't know he was doing it, but giving everyone a little more peace of mind.

+

The next day, everyone had once again gathered in Niall's room with looks of relief, happiness and nervousness on their faces. The reason for this was because yesterday when Dr Green, came to see Niall, he said that his temperature was indeed looking better and if it continued to stay that way then they'd start reducing the medicine that was keeping him asleep, today.   
They could all see on the little monitor next to Niall's bed that his temperature had stayed the same, give or take a degree so that meant that they'd be able to see those bright blue eyes again soon.

Walking into the room, Dr Green & Molly could sense the atmosphere and chuckled softly to themselves, knowing how happy this would make everyone.  
"Hello, everyone! I can see that Niall's temperature is good and from the overnight obs it's been like that all night too, so let's wake the lazy lad up, eh?" Dr Green, announced, lightening the mood with his little joke towards the end.

He moved towards the drip stand where all the various IVs were attached, all helping Niall in some way, and locating the one that was keeping him asleep. He closed the connection from the bag to the cannula in Niall's hand, off and switched the bag for a new one - this one containing the magic wake up drug.

Everyone sat around nervously whilst Dr Green sorted the IVs out, and Molly was monitoring Niall all the way through. It took another 5 minutes before the Dr spoke again, "ok so it will take a little while to kick into his bloodstream but he should start showing signs of waking up soon. We'll come back in 5 or 10 minutes just to check but it should be about 30 minutes before he really starts to come round, he may just make little sounds or open his eyes slightly but he won't know he's doing it. I'll see you all in a little while ok?" He said, before walking out with Molly in tow.

"Oh my god, I can't wait for him to wake up" Maura said first, getting emotional again, standing up and kissing her youngest son's forehead.

+

20 minutes had passed and everyone could see the little movements Niall was making, showing that his body was waking up, much to the joy of his room's occupants.

The group were talking quietly amongst themselves apart from Harry and Zayn who were checking twitter and laughing at the fan's tweets, such as;   
 **'where are the boys at!?',**

**'I hope the boys are enjoying their time off!** **They deserve it :)'**

**'MISSING: 5 young idiots who are in a** **cheesy pop** **band'**

**'#MissionFindTheBoys'**

Of course, the fans knew that they were having a break but by now there would've been pictures of at least 2 of them out and about.

"We have literally crazy fans" Zayn, commented, smiling at the tweets.

"Hey guys?" Liam suddenly asked everyone, "do you think we should mention something about Niall? Because when Niall gets better and he can leave there are bound to be pics taken somehow and the fans will want answers"

Of course, they all knew that they were entitled to their privacy and didn't have to tell the world everything, but then again if they all go missing and suddenly appear with Niall on crutches, the fans will most likely come up with ridiculous conspiracy as to why.

"Well, maybe we could tell them that Ni's had the surgery? But just not about the...  _complications_  that came after it" Greg suggested

"Yeah maybe. And you boys could just say you've been helping Niall and stuff over the break which can be why no one's seen much of any of you" Paul added

They all agreed to it, and Louis sent out the tweet in a Twitlonger,

**'Hey guys!**  
 **Sorry none of us boys have been on much, these past few days but as you all know we're on a break at the moment. But you're probably still confused because we still tweet on our breaks normally, but the reason we haven't this time is because we've all been looking after our Irish brother!**  
 **Niall finally had the long awaited knee surgery a couple days ago and since then he's been very sleep and uncomfortable and despite the painkillers, still in a quite a bit of pain. His lovely family have been here too so he's had lots of moral support!**  
 **When Niall's finally released from the hospital (we don't know when yet), please respect that he's going to need lots of rest and support from not only us but from you guys, so make sure you send him lots of love on here and if you want to send him a Get Well Soon card, well then that's ok too, I'm sure he'd love it!**  
 **Please respect ALL of our privacy** **, including Niall's family,** **during this break as we're going to need to give Niall our full attention so if you do happen to see us out and about please don't take hundreds of pics or tweet our whereabouts cos that's not cool** **and we'll send Theo and his dribbly mouth on you!**  
 **Anyway, that's enough from me, but we thought you all deserved to know in case you suddenly see pics of Niall with crutches and no explanation.**

**We love you guys!**

**Louis, Harry, Liam, Zayn (and Niall) :)x'**

"Do you think that'll do?" Louis asked

"Yeah, go and tweet it, mate" Zayn replied

So Louis hit the send button, not bothering to wait for the tweets to fly in.

_"_ _Mmm, ma?"_

9 heads snapped up at the sound of a groggy voice, their attention directed to the blonde on the bed whose eyes were blinking rapidly, squinting to try and adjust to the blinding lights above his head. "Niall!" Many voices shouted at once, making said boy jump and wince as his leg jiggled slightly in its cast.

"Oh my baby! I'm so glad to see you're awake, I was so worried sweetheart" Maura gushed, hugging onto Niall's arm tightly.

"Mm, what 'appened?" Niall mumbled, his voice hoarse.

Paul pressed the call bell for the doctor before smiling down at the little Irishman, "you had your knee surgery buddy but there was a little complication but your doctor should be here in a minute to explain everything"

Niall just nodded slightly and decided to take a moment to see who was in his room -  _Liam, Louis, Harry...Zayn, Paul, Mum, Dad, Greg... Denise and- and little Theo!_ He counted off in his head getting excited to see that his nephew was here and he was awake too. He reached his hand out gently, trying to get the message across, which thankfully Denise understood, standing up to sit near Niall's bedside, balancing her son on the edge.

Theo's smile brightened seeing his uncle was awake - he could finally play with him again! He smacked his hands softly on Niall's chest and arms, gurgling away and producing a gummy smile

"Hi Theo" Niall murmured, holding the little boy's hand in his own.

Eventually Dr Green arrived and explained to Niall what happened and told him that he'd be in the hospital for a few more days before they consider discharging him, then left leaving Niall to continue playing with his nephew and catching up on what he'd missed.  
"we mentioned to the fans about your knee op, not about anything else though - they don't need to know about that" Harry explained

"Oh ok, I bet their tweets were manic, huh?" He chuckled weakly

"You know we haven't really checked to be honest" Zayn realised, pulling out his phone and perching on the left side of Niall's bed. He opened up the Twitter app and read through his timeline and mentions seeing thousands of supportive and concerned tweets flooding in from the fans, which he decided to read out to the blonde, (of course there were not so nice ones, but Zayn decided to skip over those)

 **'Get well soon @NiallOfficial!** <3 **'**

**'We love you @NiallOfficial!'**

**'#GetWellSoonNialler'**

**'Its so cute that the boys are looking after Niall! They're so protective and caring towards him awwww!** :')<3 **'**

**'@NiallOfficial You'll be back to doing your Horan jumps in no time, baby!! Xx'**

**'THOSE DOCTORS BEST NOT MESS UP MY HUSBAND'S LEG OTHERWISE I'LL MARCH DOWN TO THAT HOSPITAL AND SLAP SOMEONE SILLY'**

They all laughed as Zayn read out the last one, Niall's eyes drooping slightly as he began to get tired

"Our fans are the best!" Liam exclaimed

"Totally crazy but totally dedicated" Harry added

Niall agreed, closing his eyes as he drifted off to sleep a smile playing on his lips,

_"Best fans on the planet"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kudos/comment/subscribe x

**Author's Note:**

> Malignant Hyperthermia is a real, not very well known condition and the only reason I know about it is bc I have it and I went through what I've described with Niall (but mine was a jaw op not a knee op hehe) obvs I was asleep for the majority of it including the part that I've described, so I'm going on what I've been told by my parents, doctors, etc. it's horrible and it made my meant to be routine 2 day hospital stay into a week so.. Yeah.
> 
> If you want to know more, then feel free to message me! I just tried to make it as simple to understand as possible ha.
> 
>  
> 
> kudos/comment/subscribe x


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